


Six Hundred and Forty Fish Later

by astraeus



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Gen, Literally everyone dies, Murder, Suicide, This actually takes place a few years ahead of the storyline so who knows it could be canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-25
Updated: 2014-04-25
Packaged: 2018-01-20 19:18:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1522538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astraeus/pseuds/astraeus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is no such thing as an honourable death.<br/>In which Armin loses everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Six Hundred and Forty Fish Later

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably fairly ooc (though I've been assured that it's not) so for that, I'm sorry.  
> There is a successful suicide attempt in this story so do not read it if you are triggered by that sort of thing.

In this world, there are no survivors. Everyone dies and that’s the bottom line. The concept itself is hard to accept, but once you do, everything is easier.

It’s easier to watch your friends die because everyone dies, so why should they be any different?

They’re not.

*

To everyone’s surprise, Eren is the first to die. Humanity’s Last Hope passes only two years after he’s given the unofficial title. The boy transforms and he loses himself. What’s been determined is that his emotions were too intense, his blood pressure too high. Eren as a whole was too much, as he always has been.

He ran and swung and took out half an acres worth of the tall trees outside of the walls.

Quick as lightning, Mikasa ran her blade across his nape.

Now that surprised everyone even more.

*

A young boy grows up pampered behind Wall Sina. He always had enough to eat and could see the palace from his backyard. This boy was very happy indeed.

Up until Yeager was killed. Roughly the same age as the 104th squad, the boy walks the streets and pieces the story together. The titan shifter, killed by his own sister. She was temporarily suspended from the regiment and the scouts rioted. Now there are not enough of them, not enough trainees are volunteering. People are being taken from the Military Police to aid in the recon efforts.

The boy’s father is one of those people. The boy’s father is also one of the many to die outside of the walls, a nameless death.

The boy wants revenge and he grabs it by the throat.

Erwin Smith’s throat to be exact, eight months after Eren is killed.

*

Bertholdt and Reiner disappear a month after Erwin’s murder. No one knows what’s happened to them.

Connie says that the day they went missing, he remembers them saying that they were going to the market to buy fruit.

A week later, their bodies are found in the middle of the military barracks, dumped there overnight and accompanied by a basket of shiny red apples.

People don’t talk much about Reiner Braun and Bertholdt Hoover.

*

Mikasa had been struggling since the day she dealt with Eren. Prone to mood swings and often going off on her own for hours on end.

She never really smiled when Eren was alive, but she was nice. Neutral. She tolerated everyone.

Not so much anymore. Her eyes were cobwebbed and her mouth spoke with dust. She no longer had a care for anything. It was all just routine.

Two years after Eren dies, Sasha finds Mikasa swinging from the rafters. A note sits on the ground beneath her feet.

_Why remember him when I could see him myself?_

Very few people are shocked.

*

Commander Levi and Lance Corporal Hange Zoe are experimenting on a captured titan that makes muffled grunts. Grunts that sound humanoid.

Hange takes a step closer and part of her arm is ripped off before anyone can process what’s happened. Levi rushes forward to drag her away from the titan and loses a leg in the process.

Hange’s appendage tapers off at the middle of the forearm and heals into a perfectly lovely little stump.

The same fate cannot be said for Levi, who succumbs to infection within a week.

There is no such thing as an honorable death.

*

There are other deaths. Hundreds, but people still join and fight every single day.

Jean becomes a Captain and serves for a happy five more years until he’s killed in action.

Connie and Sasha get married and die on a mission on the same day, but not before Connie takes down the titan that killed Sasha plus three more.

Ymir loses a lengthy fight with pneumonia.

So many deaths, corpses so numerous they can’t even afford to be buried anymore. Just burned until their skin crackles and pops and their bones crumble away into nothing.

*

The worst thing about outliving your friends is knowing that there was nothing you could do. You can’t prevent the inevitable. Once a fire starts burning it’s nearly impossible to extinguish and even then, the embers still glow. They still threaten to reignite at any moment and that’s what you’re waiting for. You’re waiting for the moment that the flames will burst back to full force and wrap you in its arms.

Why haven’t the flames come for you yet? Why are you still breathing, as the last remnant of a generation lost?

You don’t know, have no idea.

So you wait and you bide your time because something has to happen right? Something dramatic and real like the way all of your other friends died.

You turn forty and retire from the survey corps. The newest commander, a man named Novak comes to you for tactical advice at least once a month. You are happy to help.

You turn fifty-six and no longer aid the survey corps. “It’s fruitless,” you whisper to your reflection. The Commander knocks at your door daily, wondering if you’re ever going to come out of your house.

It’s unlikely.

You turn sixty-eight and when you walk the streets, people whisper about you.

“Is that Captain Arlert? I thought he died years ago”

If only. If only.

But don’t worry, you think. Your death is coming and it’ll be heroic. Dying in the name of humanity, the hero’s death that you’ve always been destined for.

The night of your seventieth birthday, you become angry. The hatred in your blood boils and pops until you’re sure it’s going to come pouring out of your mouth like the lava that you read about in books so long ago.

You take a walk under the cool moonlight, sure that it’s going to harden the white-hot magma that’s boiling just under your skin.

A man walks by and takes notice of your stooped frame.

“Give me what you’ve got in your pockets”

Feebly, you shake your head no. No no no because it’s a pocket watch and you can’t live without it. Without the one thing that means something to you in this cold grey world.

You feel a sharp jab in your stomach and a hand rummaging through your pockets.

Falling falling falling and the man above you whispers “useless” and tosses your life onto the cobblestone.

The shattered face of the clock stares at you and you smile bloody.

“Fuck humanity” and your world goes black.


End file.
